Night Passage

Into the night on the insides of

my eyelids I set out

beyond the threads of color and

the flotsam of

the enraptured

“down in my heart

down in my heart”

the resistance of what

can’t be known

when eyelid image screen

gives up to the sleeper

I lie by myself but not

to myself to sleep

or not

and when sleep comes sewage

flows to the river, taking with it the angels

washed from sidewalks, a distant

cousin returns performing

card tricks, hollyhocks

burst from a burial place

of Neanderthals, recovered

papyri are lost again before they

can be read

on a shortwave radio voices

recite numbers through the night

a comfort of many voices, a comfort

of many numbers, unceasing till

sleep ebbs and treetops wake to

the lift of light